MicrostockGroup

Anyone here signed up or know anything about Lucky Oliver?  Is it worth my time?

Melissa

you have to keyword each one....oh well i don't have time for that

thanks

I did the same as CJ, I added my first three and then stopped because of the boring keywording method. 

But I like the look ofthe site, is not such standard like many other new sites such as Micro Stock or US Photostock.

BTW, on the site header they say about vector images, but I don't remember anything specific for vector images when uploading.  Is there a special upload area?

Regards,
Adelaide

Just thought I would ask....can we upload same photos to Lucky Oliver and all the other sites too?

Beside the western-/outlaw/cowboy - look or however you can call it -you have to ask what else is new and what is better. Its easy to see that content-wise it is a complete istock-ripoff nothing new at all. Competetion is great and in general i'm thankful for every new site but i'm not so happy about this one.
I don't have the feeling that the owners really know the market, for me it looks like that they heard about the getty-istock -deal looked at the site and said: "hey we can do the same and earn millions, We give them 10% percent more than istock and all contributors will join us". Come on 30% sucks and to offer an exclusive  deal as a new site with no traffic well thats simply to early. If you look for the company behind luckyoliver it seems that it is only a hosting company with no expirience in the photo-/design- market at all. Starting with no Iptc- and no FTP, i think none of the owners have ever contributed to a microstock-site otherwise they should have known better.
If you look at other new sites like featurepics and stockxpert they do a lot better offering a fairer deal (at least 50% with no exclusivity at all) have a lot of experience in the photo-market (stockxpert with sxc.hu also it is partly owned by jupiterimages) offer an easy upload and categories are optional - simply great. Beside that they try new things (set your own price - featurepics).
Sorry guys to have a fancy site design is not enough you have to change your policy, you need new ideas and you have to keyword at least thousand of your own pics in the iptc-data and then upload it to all the sites so you can learn and understand the market and to see the market from our side because you want our pictures and without our pictures you are nothing!

At LuckyOliver, we're building a company, not a website -- and certainly not a fly-by-night operation. We're one month into the live site. We've made the decision to build the product in front of our audience so we can get good feedback along the way. Some stuff is still broken, but each week we make good progress.

On the whole the site is in good shape to grow.

Just to give you a little bit of background on us--I myself have operated a design firm for 8 years, helped more than 55 start-up companies and ran my own gallery space in Sausalito, CA. I've been denied on Istock, purchased over $15,000 worth of stock photos for companies and have submitted 250 of my own images to LuckyOliver.  Our team has even more experience in marketing, public relations, hosting, and design.

To clarify our offer, 30% is the base payment, with the potential for earning more based on your status. We don't require a photographer to be exclusive, but you do have the option of making an image exclusive. We have FTP, now have IPTC reading (based on feedback received a week and a half ago on this forum!), no categories and a formal submission process. We allow photographers to set a buyout price.

We'll let the photographers make the decision on what they think is fair.

Running any business including LuckyOliver still requires employees, rent, servers, marketing, credit card transaction fees and bandwidth. It's not just putting up a web site. I can't speak for our competition, but giving a high royalty rate that isn't sustainable long-term will make it difficult for many of these sites to survive. We have partners and investors that believe in us and have specific skill sets that'll help us get off the starting blocks and into the running--skills that help ensure our growth. How about you give us 6 months and then write a review. :-)

Thanks for the feedback!

Uploading some photos today i will let you all know how I get on. Of popular subject that don't really get a chance to sell elsewhere

Hopefully FTP + IPTC + no cat =  though sales is the most importnat thing

Certainly was a very busy day at the forum yesterday

my two cents for big growth.....
And what has been proven by other agencies.

Have a reward to uploading photos for a month or so.  Fotolia did this and got everyone uploading instantly.  it is not worth anyones time to upload to a site that doesn't have sales.  We are busier than that and need a little more encouragment.  If there is a compensation for uploading our photos it will be worth, or at least more worth our time even if the downloads don't come right away.

Get a referal system.  Basically every site has them.  Some better than others.  Sites like fotolia and shutterstock with really good referal systems have people talking about them on every forum.  If microstock comes up as a topic on a photography forum you can be guaranteed that about 10 people will mention either fotolia or shutterstock, just because they have a good referral system.

 

From Bryan's reponse it basically sounds like he has had success in the past building companies.  He is relying on his team's superior marketing and business skills to become successful.  I agree that many of the failed stock sites, failed because of their lack of marketing skills.  They probably started with a team that had a lot of experience as designers and photographers and figured they would extend it to a microstock site.  But their lack of marketing skills killed them.  So I agree with Bryan that those skills are needed.  But unlike most companies where you control the product design and production and focus, in the stock business you are at the mercy of the photographers.  Right now you don't have a product to market.  No matter how good your business or marketing skills are, your product is horrible.  Meaning you have almost no selection.  So instead of focusing on marketing your company that focus needs to be towards photographers and getting your product where it needs to be.  Offering referal programs, giving initial photographers a bigger % if they sign up first.  Whatever you think will bring in photographers.  Offering a payout like fotolia did for every photo for a month worked extremely well for them.  Your focus need to be on your product (photograhers) before you can go out and sell it.  Having said that we have been a little impatient with you and your company.  Like you said you have only been out there for a month.  I for one have no intention of uploading my pictures until the upload process is painless and you raise our % from 30% to at least 40%.  Maybe you can find others who are willing to take a risk with you, but I'm going to sit back and wait 6-12 months before I jump.

Mark

allright, I have uploaded my first three.

now give me my referral program and I'll upload the rest

Thanks for all your suggestions on the IPTC and referral system. I appreciate all the Carnies who have already submitted- your efforts are noticed. For those photographers waiting to submit, we'll be happy to get you on board you when it makes sense for you!

darn, i didn't think about that sorry.  I would have actually been willing to wait until I was able to be referred by someone, that would have been a good idea.